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Deeva InterruptedSat, 03 Aug 2019 03:41:50 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.645403789Girls Rescued From Varanasi Brothels In India Tell Their Horrifying Stories In New Documentary ‘Gudiya’http://peacebenwilliams.com/girls-rescued-from-varanasi-brothels-in-india-tell-their-horrifying-stories-in-new-documentary-gudiya/
http://peacebenwilliams.com/girls-rescued-from-varanasi-brothels-in-india-tell-their-horrifying-stories-in-new-documentary-gudiya/#respondFri, 05 Aug 2016 09:13:50 +0000http://peacebenwilliams.com/?p=67846A new documentary Gudiya by Blush Originals reveals the horrendous abuse suffered by young girls in the brothels. Gudiya is the Hindi word for Doll…a story about the devastating lives of sex workers in the brothels of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh – the constituency of Indian PM Narendra Modi.

Girls rescued by the Guriya Foundation tell their harrowing stories of survival – including Priya, who was abducted, raped, and abused before being abandoned o the roadside.

THE STORY…

“They were holding me so tight that it was difficult for me to even breathe. I kept screaming but no one came forward to rescue me.”

“They raped me for two days. I was brutally kicked and slapped, and sent to Mumbai. A police officer called Mr Chaurasiya asked the boys to dump me in the car and send me to a place from where I cannot come back.”

“If anyone wants to experience heaven and hell on earth, they should spend at least a day with one of these girls living in these brothels…”

This is no fictional drama, but a harsh reality suffered by thousands of girls trapped inside the brothels in Varanasi – one of the oldest religious cities in the world.

The voices of young girls (identified with fake names such as Roohi and Priya) are presented to haunting effect in the hard-hitting documentary by Blush Originals, titled Gudiya.

The documentary has so far gathered 284,799 views on YouTube and the makers are being flooded with responses from viewers across the world.

Roohi and Priya were 13 and 17 respectively, when they were abducted by men in their villages.

Priya gives horrifying details of how she was abducted by two men and taken to Mumbai, were she was raped and assaulted every day.

But when she was about to be sold to a brothel, her captors learnt that her mother had visited the police station back home to lodge an FIR – and they abandoned her on an isolated lane in Mumbai.Priya explains in the film…

“They threw me out of running vehicle near Kurla (a place in Mumbai), from where I randomly boarded a train to escape their clutches and somehow returned to my home.”

The girls mustered the courage to appear on camera and speak of the world which they recall as ‘worse than hell’.

Directed by young filmmakers Joyna Mukherjee and Ankit Tari, the documentary produced by Culture Machine, takes the audience to the unknown dark by-lanes of Varanasi, which host the seedy underbelly of Indian society.

Roohi narrated how she was tortured and raped while she was kidnapped and sold to a brothel.

To begin with, it was hard for the filmmakers to convince the girls who suffered in this living hell to relive their traumas.

They were rescued by an NGO – Guriya Swayam Sevi Sansthan. The organisation is run by Ajeet Singh and his wife Manju Singh, who is a rescuer and counsellor.

The documentary narrates how the police, the local administration and the brothel owners are hand-in-glove

Ajeet says,

“We are not moral police or judges of the society. Our motto is only to prevent human trafficking, child prostitution, and prevent second generation prostitution.”

“The system is like a well-oiled machine, which is smoothly operating for decades now.”

“The living conditions are so bad that most of them suffer AIDS, STDs, and in no time start to look much older than their real age.”

He has been running the Guriya Sansthan since the 90s, and has been struggling to break the system which supports the brothel owners.

Manju Singh describes how little babies are kidnapped from hospitals and given sex hormones in the brothels:

“Newborn babies from hospitals are kidnapped and sold into these brothels. They are brutally tortured, electrocuted, starved and given sex hormones. Within no time, these girls become a part of the miserable brothel life and start calling it their home.”

Manju reveals in the film how teenage girls are sold ‘in the market’, and society turns a blind eye to it.Varanasi is a prominent religious destination for Hindu worshippers, and is the constituency of PM Narendra Modi

Varanasi has traditionally been the most important place for Hindu worshippers, a destination for millions of travellers for spiritual tourism – and it is the constituency of PM Narendra Modi.

This same city has been home to young girls who were forcefully made to join the red-light district.

The brothels in Varanasi have been a bustling hub for child prostitution and teenage sex slaves for many years – and the police, administration, brothel owners and the pimps are hand-in-glove.

Joyna and Aniket Tari realised that although the brothels have been running openly in Varanasi for decades, no concrete efforts had been made to stop it or give these girls a better life.

“This is a topic which has been conveniently wiped under the carpet for long. We hope the film will at least make people think and talk about it openly,” says Joyna.

“Despite an endless search, we could manage to convince only two-three girls to come on the camera and speak about their life, as not many had the courage to talk about the life inside the brothels.

“These three courageous girls were rescued by Guriya Sansthan, and their mothers stood by them refusing to bow down to the pressures of society and the social system,” says Aniket Tari.

The Filmmakers Aniket Tari and Joyna Mukherjee feel the documentary will make people think and talk about the issue

The film also narrates the anguish of the helpless parents, who fail to find justice and are shooed away by the police, who often refuse to lodge complaints.